Audio Books – from LP to MP3

Posted by admin on Jul 22nd, 2010 | 0 comments

Audio books are a great way to use ‘empty’ time. Load an audio book into your MP3 player or iPod – you can find audio books for just about any interest, from novels to business books and audio books about self-improvement to even the bible or the coran. You can find them 24 hours a day, just by clicking a few buttons on your computer and an internet shop delivers the contents for your iPod or MP3 player conveniently to you.

Even if they have only become very popular again recently, the concept of audio books goes back about eighty years! Initially books on tape or on LP’s were produced for the blind. Here’s a short look back in history:

Already in the 1920’s, the Royal National Institute for the Blind in England (RNIB) initiate research to find the best way to produce audio books for blind soldiers that were the result of the World War I battles. They finally decide to produce audio books on LP’s and the first ones were made in 1926. To play them they were put on the old fashioned LP players that had to be cranked by hand and delivered the sound through the big horn. This was a great development for the blind, but was hardly used by normal consumers. So these audio books from RNIB remained a niche product and never reached the masses.

The concept was successful and in 1936 the Royal National Institute for the Blind launched the ‘Talking Book Service’. The first two books they produced were:’The murder of Roger Ackroyd’ (Agatha Christie) and ‘Thyphoon’ (Joseph Conrad). Because the records could only hold 25 minutes of spoken text, an average audio book had to be recorded on an average of ten records.

During WWII, the studio used by the RNIB was bombed, and one month later a replacement studio was bombed as well, destroying much needed equipment to continue the production. The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), who had started to produce audio books in the USA sent replacement parts and equipment to London so that the production could be taken up again.

The old fashioned LP’s were replaced by modern LP’s and finally cassettes, making listening to audio books more convenient. Sony’s Walkman made it possible to take your audio book with you and listen on the go. This is when audio books started to be bought by the general consumers. The next step was to produce these listening books on CD, making them even more convenient.

Over the last few years the audio book technology has made a quantum leap: Digital MP3 files can be packed onto a player that weighs only a few grams and runs on a set of batteries for many hours. The most popular player is without doubt the Apple iPod, but there are many other MP3 players on the market that have helped to make listening to content on the go very popular.

Finding an audio book is as easy as typing an address into your internet browser, consulting the catalog of the audio book shop and then downloading your audio book within minutes. No more need to visit your local library or book shop. If you want to shop at 3 am – no problem, the shop is open 24 hours!

One shop that offers a wide variety of audio books is the AudioBooksCorner Store. High quality audio books from publishers like BBC, Hachette and many others cover a wide variety of topics. Best selling authors offer their books as audio books and the well known foreign language courses by Pimsleur are available for download too.

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Shop Your Book ? Online

Posted by admin on Jul 18th, 2010 | 0 comments

For booklovers, books are the world, -the best things. Books are the showcase or the insights of a human brain. They tell a lot about the kind of personality, the person reading the book has. As someone said – it’s the beauty of mind which is shown in the kind of books one reads; these truly are a reflection of ones personality.

Books are generally classified as fiction and non – fiction. Fictional ones are based on imagination or are simply scripted out stories which are not based on a true life story. On the other hand ‘non–fictional’ include biographies, health books, design books – all those which have something in relation to life or are based on true life story. Others are classified under the categories like architecture, fashion, film and media, natural history, design, photography, performing arts, psychology, investing, stock exchange, yoga, apparels, appliances and so on…

Sold in the form of Paperbacks, soft covers, hardbound, books can be either fun based, on serious topics like economy and division of states, or any other kind. For someone who loves to read books, the classification is just not important. However, there are certain people who are very specific in their choice of books, but then exceptions do exist.

Books can be purchased from good online books store like CrossWord. Though you can find a range of books in book stores like this, still, the prices are so high that one, who often purchases a book, hesitates from picking up one. In this case, online book stores are a good option. In an online book store you can easily search through the various sections like – kids, art, design, computers, fiction, non – fiction etc. and look for the desired book. Often online shopping stores give discounts which can range anywhere from 5% to 80%, depending upon the store, time and occasion. By taking these discounts, sometimes you can buy two or three books instead of the one book you can buy. Secondly, you can get them delivered at their doorstep, which saves a lot of time and of course saves you from rushing down the traffic.

Good Online book stores offer a host of discounts and also a wide range of books to select from. Shopping from these stores not only saves your money but also saves you from rushing down in the traffic. Some of the good online book stores like HomesShop18 offer the best deals when it comes to book shopping. With these online stores you can also order the books to be delivered at your doorstep, making this much easier for you.

So, next time you think of buying a book, log on to the popular online shopping stores and have your books in your hand at the ease of home.

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